Following President Bush's veto of a spending bill that included $30 billion for the National Institutes of Health, Congress continues to work on revised appropriations levels for fiscal year 08, which began two months ago. With a temporary funding resolution running out next week and the holiday break looming ahead, lawmakers are pushing to get a bill to the President next week.

A resolution by Congress allows agencies to operate at 2007 levels for now, but the resolution lasts only until December 14. What happens next to funding levels is "the big unknown," Kei Koizumi, the director of R&D budget and policy program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told The Scientist. The options include extending the resolution. The problem, Koizumi said, "is that for any agency it is really hard to plan for a new year's program on last year's budget." Additionally, continuing 2007 funding levels delays increases that some agencies might see.

Stacie Propst, the senior director of policy and outreach at Research!America (a group whose board of directors includes The Scientist's founder, Eugene Garfield), told The Scientist her group is urging lawmakers to write in a 3.1% increase in the NIH budget and a 6.6% increase in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget.

Koizumi said Congressional leadership set a Monday (December 10) deadline for committees to have their appropriations ready. Whether the NIH or CDC will get any increases in unknown, although Karl Moeller, the executive director of the Campaign for Public Health, told The Scientist that if Congress went with the President's budget request from February, the CDC would see a cut to its budget. "That's the worst case scenario," Moeller said.